


Home Base

by Barkour



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse Babies, Future Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 13:39:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6426109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two kids on a roof enjoying a warm autumn day at the end of the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Base

Judith's momma said they weren't supposed to go up on the roof. Judith said it didn't matter if they didn't get caught.

"We're gonna get in trouble," said Hershel. He licked the salt from his fingers.

"I said it doesn't matter." She offered him the bag of corn chips.

"Michonne'll find out. She finds out everything." 

"Momma won't find out if you keep your mouth shut!"

"You're yelling."

She pulled the bag away from him. "I'm not yelling!"

Hershel screwed his face up like how Judith's baby sister did when she cried. "Wah wah wah--"

Judith punched him in the arm, and Hershel fell over giggling onto the old gravel. The knife tucked through his belt pressed flat against his back. The sky was clear, the sun bright. Tumbling had knocked Hershel's hat back from his brow. He stretched his fingers out to that blue sky then thought better of it and licked the salt away from his hands. 

Judith crunched at the chips. She kept look-out. She was good at that. Hershel studied the way the sunlight worked at her short blonde curls.

"Your daddy's down there," said Judith.

Hershel rolled over on his belly and crawled to the roof's lip to peer at the fence. Glenn had took his hat off, the hat that matched Hershel's. The knotted scar tissue was dark across his gnarled face. 

"He put down three walkers yesterday," said Hershel proudly.

"Momma put down eight."

"No, she didn't, she didn't go out yesterday."

"She went out!"

Hershel's mom was at the fence, too, with a bag of cement at her back. She heaved it down to her feet, between Maggie and Glenn, and his dad leaned in toward her.

Judith clapped hands over her face. "Ewwwww, they're kissing."

Hershel made gagging sounds, too, but he peeked between his fingers to watch. Mom smiled at Dad and ran her thumb down the broken line of his cheek and then she kissed the bump of his nose. The wind moved sweetly around camp. He wondered what it was like, kissing. Mom and Dad did it all the time.

"Why's your dad look like that anyway?"

"'Cause of Negan," said Hershel. 

Judith frowned and spat off the roof. Hershel copied her. They all knew about Negan, the kids did. One of the wicked men they learned about in school. And Abraham laid down his life for Glenn, because Abraham was a good man who remembered that it was right to be true.

Judith scuffed her nose with her arm and offered Hershel the bag. Only the crumbs were left, but Hershel liked to suck the salt from the wrapper. He tore it along the seams.

"What d'you think they're doing?" he asked.

"Making walls."

Judith said, "Carl!" and Hershel jumped and coughed on the plastic still in his mouth.

Judith's brother loped across the roof. Hershel pulled the bag from his mouth and said, "I told you."

"Not Momma," Judith retorted.

"You're not supposed to be up here." Carl ground his rifle's barrel in the gravel and folded an arm on the butt. He'd knocked his hat back to show his face to the sun. "Dad's rules."

"Aw, you don't care."

"Don't tell my mom," said Hershel.

Judith sneered at him. "Weenie baby walker bait."

"Dumbass."

"Watch your mouth," said Carl mildly.

"What're they making walls for?" Hershel asked.

Carl shrugged a shoulder. "Cement's stronger than fences."

"Dumb," said Judith. "We're gonna move anyway when it's winter."

"Council wants to stay."

"Here?" said Hershel, doubtful. "It's gonna snow."

Carl shrugged again. "They think it's better, staying."

"Walkers'll come."

"Said it was council." Carl backed off his rifle and swung it up again. "Not me. You got any chips left?"

"You don't want to stay?" 

"Dumbass," Judith called Hershel. A look of triumph was about her, then Carl cuffed her head.

"Don't cuss, or I'll tell Dad."

"Don't you dare!"

Hershel laughed at Judith.

"I'll tell Maggie what you said, too," Carl told him. 

"There's not any chips left," Hershel said. He showed Carl the torn up bag. "Just salt."

Carl sighed and scratched at his beard, coming in. "They were probably stale anyway."

Hershel and Judith looked at each other. She shrugged.

"What's stale?"

"It just means they're old."

"I liked 'em."

"You just like salt," said Judith.

Hershel made a show of licking the wrapper sloppily.

Judith turned her attention to Carl. "You're not really gonna tell Dad and Momma, are you?"

Carl stared coolly down at her with his one eye. Judith stuck her lip out. 

"Ple-e-e-e-ease?"

"This would make a good sniper nest," Carl said instead of answering. He looked around the roof, assessing.

"It's our base," Hershel said, "get your own."

Carl laughed. The sound of it startled Hershel, but Judith beamed. Carl turned a grin on Hershel.

"You going to fight me for it?"

"Yeah, I'll fight you," said Hershel. 

He scrambled to his feet. At seven years old, he was just barely even with the bottom of Carl's chest.

"Quit it, he'll beat you," Judith told him.

Hershel's face burned. He glared at Judith, who was smiling up at her big brother still. "I bet I'd win."

"Nobody beats Carl."

"Do you have your knife?" Carl asked Hershel.

Hershel jerked his chin in a nod. 

"Then you're at the right height," Carl said. He pointed to his side, a few inches above his hip. "Drive the point in here, with the blade edge pointed to you. Yank it back towards you, it should rip a line through the skin. You're still pretty small, though, so you'd have to move out of the way fast before I come down on you."

"Don't you have to hit walkers in the head?"

"Sure," said Carl. "But it's not always going to be walkers."

Hershel nodded again, slower. The wicked men, like Negan.

"I did it once," said Judith.

"No, you didn't," said Hershel, "you didn't ever."

"Yes, I did! He was coming at Leila and Momma was stuck with the walkers so I had to do it."

"When did that ever happen?"

"Last winter, when we got split up outside Raleigh."

"You didn't ever!" said Hershel again, but he looked at Judith with deepening awe. Judith smiled sleekly and tossed her head back.

"You did what was right," Carl told her. Then he looked at Hershel. "She threw up on him too."

"Carl!" Judith said, and she shoved him hard in the side. Carl swayed some but he didn't stagger.

Hershel said, "I've never stabbed anybody," and frowned.

Carl looked at him, and he was calm, Judith's brother, he was tall and unmovable and something other than them. Sometimes he told them things about the way it was before the walkers, but it never made much sense to Hershel, the way Carl said it used to be. People couldn't live like that. It wasn't safe.

"That's right, too," Carl said to Hershel.

Hershel's face felt hot again. Judith smiled at him, and his face burned even more. Hershel pulled his baseball cap down his forehead.

"Carl!" someone called. Rick, it had to be, the way he said Carl's name. "Judith up there with you?"

Hershel turned. Judith's dad was glowering up at them with baby Leila, two years old, sat low on his hip. Her kinky black hair was pulled into poofs either side of her head, and she looked up with her daddy at them. Hershel waved a little at her. He couldn't help it. Everyone said that babies were good, that babies meant things were okay, and Leila always smiled at Hershel and Judith and Carl and everyone.

"I got both of them," Carl called back.

"Hershel!" 

He froze with his hand still raised to Leila. His mom was pacing up the street with her hand over her eyes.

"What did we say about going up on that roof?"

"Aw, shit," said Hershel.

"Carl, that roof's not stable--"

"Yeah, I know," Carl said, "I was just getting them. Followed Judith up." He jerked his head toward the stair door. "C'mon."

Judith gasped, betrayal etched loudly across her scrawny face. Hershel laughed, and she socked him in the arm again.

"Walker bait," she called him.

"Walker chow."

"You're so slow walkers think you're already dead."

"You're so stinky walkers don't even wanna eat you," Hershel said.

Judith, giggling, grabbed his hand and drew him with her to their fate.

**Author's Note:**

> Just marathoned four and a half seasons of The Walking Dead. I wrote this in a rush before the season six finale aired, to preserve a hope of a world where Glenn doesn't die stupidly because This Time It's For Real.


End file.
